The Services to Artists Committee invites artist members to participate in ARTexchange, CAA’s pop-up exhibition and annual meet-up for artists and curators. This social event provides an opportunity for artists to share their work and build affinities with other artists, historians, curators, and cultural producers. ARTexchange will take place at the 106th Annual Conference in Los Angeles on Friday evening, February 23, 2018, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM.

Each artist is given the space on, above, and beneath a six-foot table to exhibit their work: prints, paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, and small installations; performance, process-based, interactive, and participatory works are especially encouraged. CAA encourages creative use of the space and in the past this set up has sparked many unique displays. Please note that artwork cannot be hung on walls, and it is not possible to run power cords from laptops or other electronic devices to outlets.

To participate as an exhibiting artist in 2018, email caaprograms@collegeart.org, with “ARTexchange” and your last name in the subject line, by (deadline extended!) December 15, 2017, with the following information: (1) a short description of what you will exhibit and how you will use the six-foot table space (provide details regarding performance, sound, spoken word, or technology-based work, including laptop presentations); (2) your CAA member number (memberships must be active through February 24, 2018); and (3) your website or a link to a digital portfolio.

Because ARTexchange is a popular venue and participation is based on available space, early applicants are given preference. Participants are responsible for their work; CAA is not liable for losses or damages. Sales of work are not permitted.

The International Art Materials Association, better known as NAMTA, asks CAA members to contribute to the Artists and Art Materials Survey, a major international study that should take about ten minutes to complete. NAMTA is an association of hundreds of independent and family-owned art materials manufacturers and retailers. The survey deadline is November 25, 2014.

This survey is anonymous—you will not receive marketing spam after taking it. Results will be published in the third edition of the NAMTA Artists and Art Materials Study, which will be freely available to nonprofit arts organizations, colleges and universities, art school, and NAMTA members in January 2015.

By taking this survey you will help artist organizations, art schools, and businesses serve you better, as well as tell art-supply stores and suppliers what artists want. You may also receive free digital issues of The Artist’s Magazine and Professional Artist and get the chance to win one of five $100 art supply store gift cards. Please forward this webpage to your colleagues and students, as their contributions to the survey are essential.

NAMTA will make the 2015 NAMTA Artists and Art Materials Study available free of charge to college art organizations and institutions. If you work for an educational institution or arts nonprofit, please sign up at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NAMTAresults. NAMTA will send you the survey results in early 2015.

The International Art Materials Association (NAMTA), an organization of more than 550 professional art-materials businesses, conducts a study of artists and art materials every three years and is asking all artists, art students, and art instructors to contribute by completing an online survey by Monday,April 2, 2012. The survey is open to American and Canadian artists, over the age of 18, working in any medium. CAA especially encourages art students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels to participate.

Prizes

For individuals: Two lucky survey participants are eligible to win $200 each in gift certificates to an art-supply store.

For schools: A gift box of art supplies will be awarded to the top five colleges that have the most students complete the survey. The gift box includes: Strathmore drawing pads, Golden and Liquitex acrylic paint sets, Winsor and Newton oil paint sets and brushes, a $100 gift certificate to Art Supply Warehouse, the Artist’s Magazine, and a book, Rethinking Acrylic.

Participants must register to receive the executive summary and to enter the drawing by clicking on the link on the thank-you page after submitting their completed survey. The drawing and executive summary sign-up is separate from the survey to keep the survey anonymous. All survey responses are anonymous and will only be reported as part of summary figures like totals or averages. Visit the website of Hart Business Research, which is administering the survey, to learn more about how to enter the drawing and competition.

NAMTA is donating $1 for each completed survey (for the first five hundred completed) to scholarships through the NAMTA Foundation for the Visual Arts.

About the Survey

The survey is the first phase of a larger study, titled Artists & Art Materials 2012, which will also include a questionnaire for retailers of art supplies. In the study’s second phase, Hart Business Research will analyze this survey data as well as data from the National Endowment for the Arts, various artist nonprofits, the United States Census, and individual artists’ websites to build a comprehensive picture of artists’ evolving activities. The report will be announced in summer 2012, accompanied by an executive summary that will be made available to all survey participants.

Over the last decade, artists and educators have become acutely aware of the environmental and health repercussions of their studio endeavors. How have the serious consequences for personal health and the environment, as well as the legal and ethical responsibilities of institutions of higher education, shaped individual studio practice and the teaching of visual art? This session will examine the wide-ranging responses of artists working today and offer practical solutions for artists to safely create work without sacrificing their vision. We invite proposals for twenty-minute presentations about individual experiences, personal or institutional, dealing with these pressing matters.

This session will be part of ARTspace at the 2011 CAA Annual Conference in New York. Initiated in 2001, ARTspace has grown into one of the most vital and exciting aspects of the annual meeting, with programming is designed by artists for artists that is free and open to the public. Working in tandem with its affiliated programs, the Media Lounge and ARTexchange, ARTspace promotes dialogue about visual-arts practice, its relation to critical discourse, professional-development programming, and opportunities for the creative exchange of ideas.

Interested parties should submit a one-hundred-word abstract and a fifty-word autobiography in a single Word document to session cochairs Brian Bishop and Mark Gottsegen. Deadline: October 1, 2010.

A recent study on artists and their materials has been published by the International Art Materials Trade Association (known as NAMTA) and American Artist magazine, in conjunction with Hart Business Research. Based on a spring 2009 survey of artists, students, and the retailers and suppliers of art materials, “Artists & Art Materials USA 2009” is the first report published in over a decade that analyzes industry size and trends, business practices, and artist needs.

The most groundbreaking finds published in this report include an increased use of mixed media and digital media, the importance of arts education for both children and practicing artists, and the continued use of magazines and books as a primary source of learning. The results of the survey show that artists are purchasing larger amounts of “nontraditional” art materials such as fabrics, glass, and beads, using more digital products, and incorporating scavenged materials. In 2008, the percentage of artists spending for nontraditional art supplies was almost equal to that for paints.

Unsurprisingly, the study found that artists are increasingly using computers either to create digital art or to assist them in producing nondigital art. However, many artists favor printed materials such as art magazines to their website counterparts as a source for education. Eighty-seven percent of survey participants said they read art-related magazines, making these publications the top source for learning, followed closely by books. Early exposure to art is crucial: well over half of the professional artists who participated in the survey responded that art was a major part of their lives by age 12. The report urges for the support of elementary school art teachers in order to expose children to art at a young age.

The 4.4 million active artists in the United States—professionals, students, and hobbyists—are spending over $4 billion per year on art materials and services. While 28 percent of artists buy their supplies online, almost twice as much shopping (54 percent) occurs at brick-and-mortar businesses. Also, while stores are meeting artists’ need for drawing and painting supplies, an increasing number of practitioners are spending more for classes and workshops, an area underserved by retailers and suppliers.

A free download of the eight-page executive summary is available from NAMTA.

CAA’s next Annual Conference—the foremost international forum for professionals in the visual arts—takes place February 10–13, 2010, in Chicago, Illinois. The Windy City’s dramatic architectural skyline, world-renowned museums and galleries, and ultracosmopolitan Michigan Avenue provide the setting for an exciting gathering of more than four thousand artists, art historians, curators, critics, educators, and students.

An exhibit booth in the Book and Trade Fair can reach this active and distinguished group. The fair, which annually hosts more than one hundred publishers, art-materials manufacturers, and providers of art-related programs and services, will be centrally located within the conference. With three days of exhibit time, the Book and Trade Fair offers high visibility and high floor traffic for exhibitors.

In addition, an advertisement in conference publications—which include the Conference Program, Abstracts, Convocation Booklet, and Directory of Attendees—can also reach a wide audience for your publications, products, and programs.

Full details are available in the Exhibitor and Advertiser Prospectus. For questions about exhibits, please email Paul Skiff, CAA assistant director for Annual Conference, or call him at 212-691-1051, ext. 213. Interested in advertising? Contact Sara Hines, CAA marketing and development assistant, by email or at 212-691-1051, ext. 216.

The International Art Materials Trade Association (NAMTA) and American Artist magazine have begun a new industry study and are asking all artists and users of art supplies in the United States to contribute by completing an online survey.

About the Survey

The consumer survey is the first phase of a larger study, entitled “Artists & Art Materials USA 2009,” which will also consist of surveys of art-supply retailers and art-materials suppliers. In the study’s second phase, Hart Business Research will analyze this survey data plus government statistics and company financial reports to build a comprehensive picture of artists’ evolving activities. The report will be announced in fall 2009, accompanied by an executive summary that will be made available to all survey participants.

As the first large-scale survey of industry size and trends, business best practices, and artists’ needs and preferences in more than a decade, “Artists & Art Materials USA 2009” is independently researched and written by Hart Business Research and cosponsored by NAMTA, an organization of more than 550 professional art-materials businesses, and American Artist, a primary resource for artists since 1937.

Survey participants are eligible to win one of five $100 gift certificates to an art-materials store. Participants must register to receive the executive summary and to enter the sweepstakes by clicking on the link on the thank-you page after submitting their completed survey. The sweepstakes and executive summary sign-up is separate from the survey to keep the survey anonymous. All survey responses are anonymous and confidential to Hart Business Research and will only be reported as part of totals or averages.

NAMTA is also donating $1 for every completed survey (for the first 2,000 completed) to visual-arts scholarships through the NAMTA Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The Artist-Museum Partnership Act of 2009, legislation introduced in both houses of Congress, would allow a fair-market-value tax deduction for charitable contributions of literary, musical, artistic, or scholarly compositions to collecting institutions such as museums, libraries, and archives. At present, a donating artist, writer, or composer can only deduct the cost of materials used to create the work, which is not a fair incentive to donate and also hurts the missions of public and nonprofit institutions nationwide to increase public access to these unique creations.

The sponsors of the bill—Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Robert Bennett (R-UT) for S 405 and Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and Todd Platts (R-PA) for HR 1126—hope that past enthusiasm for such legislation will grow in the current 111th Congress. Although similar Senate bills have passed five times in previous years, the House version of the bill in the 110th Congress had 111 cosponsors. Now that a new Congress is underway, more cosponsors are needed to help advance the bill.

The American Association of Museums has worked with the Association of Art Museum Directors to provide a draft letter that you can use to encourage your federal lawmakers to cosponsor the bill. With your help, this important legislation for both artists and institutions can move forward.

CAA has announced the list of exhibitors who will be present in Los Angeles for this year’s Book and Trade Fair. Taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center during the 97th Annual Conference, the Book and Trade Fair hosts more than one hundred major college and university publishers, leading trade publishers, and trend-setting independent presses.

The largest national and international art-materials manufacturers and distributors, as well as highly specialized companies with unique products for studio artists, will show their products and wares. Also on hand are a handful of contemporary art journals.

The fair continues to attract a wide array of diverse organizations providing professional services to the visual arts, including programs of advanced study, specialized associations, advanced-degree programs, and independent exhibition services.

The Book and Trade Fair in Los Angeles is open for three days: Thursday, February 26, and Friday, February 27, 9:00 AM–6:00 PM, and Saturday, February 28, 9:00 AM–2:30 PM. The 2009 sponsors are ARTstor, Blick Artist Materials, Prestel Publishing, Saskia Ltd./Scholars Resource, the School of Visual Arts, and SlideRoom.